Throwing Error
There has been a story with minor league roots regarding former heralded Chico State head coach Lindsay Meggs, who is now at Indiana State. Last month, he hired part-time assistant T.J. Merritt to take over as pitching coach and recruiting coordinator. It's tough to tell for sure what's behind it since such moves aren't subjected to the same type of scrutiny that exists in the college football realm.
But it's hard to imagine Meggs being impressed with pitching-type situations like the way this one was handled, outlined by Baseball America back in May:
"Joe Thatcher found the right team. When he signed with the River City Rascals of the Frontier League, he was putting his career in the hands of a man who knows pitching. Manager Randy Martz had coached
Jason Isringhausen in junior college and future big leaguer Josh Kinney with River City.
"What he saw in Thatcher was a promising pitcher whose career had been sidetracked by overuse. He went 4-1, 1.73 for Indiana State as a freshman and 5-3, 2.33 as a sophomore. But as a junior, his workload jumped significantly because he worked as a starter in addition to still pitching in as a reliever. The result was a 4-8, 5.60 season, as he threw more innings in 2004 than he had in his previous two seasons.
"' 'His college team was using him midweek and on the weekend. We tried to baby him the first year,' said Martz, now the pitching coach for the Frontier League's Gateway Grizzlies. 'When he came back the second year he was throwing in the high 80s and low 90s. We asked him what happened? He said 'I'm finally healthy.' "